With the obligatory self-promotion out of the way, on to the additional self-promotion! I’m actually fairly close to finishing the first draft of the sequel to Omni. I don’t have a title for the story just yet, and it’ll definitely still be a while to go through revision, editing, proof-reading, and all of those fun (and sometimes frustrating) stages, then it’ll be ready. I’m not going to guarantee that it’ll be ready before this year is over (I may end up missing the end of the world–are we still making fun of that?), but it won’t be far beyond if so.

I’m excited to get it finished up and get it into people’s hands. Omni was something of an experiment in its genesis, and because of the way that book came together, I struggled with it in spots. I haven’t had anywhere near the same problems with the sequel, and in fact, have been able to explore some characters and backstory that I didn’t get the chance to get into with the first book. It is my hope that this story will help to fill in some blanks while also proving to be a good read on its own. Also, just in case I’ve never been clear about it, Omni, and its sequels, have been conceived as a three-story arc, so there’ll be one more in the Debate Team series after this next one. Beyond that, I can’t speak to anything because I have no plans.

Lastly, I’d like to take a moment to admonish the NHL and the NHLPA (mostly the NHL) for screwing all of us loyal fans out of hockey. Stop being jerks, act like adults, get your crap together, and drop the damn puck on this season already. While I wholly enjoy watching replays of Kings games from last season’s Stanley Cup playoffs, I’d rather see new, current games where the Kings continue to thrash opposing teams along the way in their quest to repeat with the exact same team they won the cup with last season. Exact. Same. Team. (With minor coaching changes, which is a good thing, or at least, can’t be a bad thing.)